Though All Men Do Despise Us
by AuroreMartell
Summary: ONESHOT. Theon through the eyes of another ironborn- specifically, a sassy gay codfish with a vendetta against all males and who should probably learn something from Theon.


A/N: I've always been mildly interested in House Codd, and I was rereading Theon's first chapter in aCoK where he sees the Iron Islands, and this somehow happened... Please read and review, thanks!

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She stands on the bow of the _Myraham_, letting the wind tangle her dark hair and the sea air spray its salty perfume over her body. She is a tall girl with a long rope of black hair, with an angled body, sharp face, and unusually blue eyes. Beauty has never been a thing of much interest to Synde Cobb; all she wishes for today is to see her home again.

In her mind, Pyke defines beauty. It is harsh and stoic and hard, as forbidding as the iron born. Synde shows her small pointed teeth in a smile, welcoming herself back to her homeland just as the islands begin to rise from the sea.

However, Pyke is clearly not the only thing arising today. The Greyjoy boy is strutting up from the stern, brandishing his foolish cloaks and shouting out orders to the crew as though he himself is the captain. _Stupid greenboy, _thinks Synde_. He won't last half a day near Balon Greyjoy. The rest of the ironborn'll eat him alive, they will._ She's been fortunate enough to avoid Theon Greyjoy for most of the journey, yet his wandering eyes and voracious hands are stuff of infamous legend on the _Myraham_. Despite his passes at her, she isn't interested in the brash greenboy. In truth, Synde is quite taken with his sister Asha, who smells of salt and experience.

Asha was her first captain, tall and rough and beautiful, and Synde has been in love with her ever since. The other ironborn dismiss her affliction with ease, saying it is the product of long journeys at sea with too much salt and steel. They are fools, but they are not cruel fools like the drylanders.

She can tell Theon Greyjoy is unabashedly staring at her arse, which annoys her. "Enjoying the view, captain?" she calls out smoothly without turning. Mayhaps it's the way he constantly smirks, or how he seems to truly believe everyone is below him, or simply the fact that he was raised by wolves and masquerades as a kraken, but Synde despises the boy.

"Aye," drawls Theon, clearly too stupid to note her sarcasm. "Are you up on decks for a bit of fresh air? I can show you a better way to enjoy your time aboard this cursed ship below decks."

_He thinks of me as some crewwoman, or a captain's daughter_, Synde thinks angrily. _Yet this will make him easier to fool, and I need my fun aboard this wreck of a craft. Asha will laugh when I tell her of this_. She pivots towards him, pulling a shocked face. "Are you truly trying to seduce an old friend of yours? I always knew there was something wrong with you, boy."

She was hoping for shock, but apparently Theon Greyjoy is too much of a randy fool to feel anything but confusion. "I- we-"

"I am Synde, boy," she snaps, suppressing her grin. "You forget me? You are more of a wolf than a kraken."

Synde has clearly struck a nerve with the boy. "I am no Stark," he growls. "And you would do well to remember that I am more ironborn than you."

This kindles her fiery temper, and the glee at his discomfort evaporates. _Has he forgotten what his own kind looks like? "_No," she grinds out through her teeth, "you would do well to remember that there are true ironborn such as myself, and-"

"You're an ironborn? Not a Greyjoy, surely?" gasps Theon.

"The Drowned God is too kind to let me be born a squid," she hisses. The only kraken Synde has ever looked well upon is Asha, but she is a different story. "I was born of House Codd, words _Though All Men Do Despise Us_, sigil a codfish. In case you are too idiotic to forget."

"You would do well to hold your tongue, woman."

His words bring a laugh to Synde's lips. "Forgive me if I do not tremble in my boots like a drylander. Let me rekindle your memory: here in the Iron Islands, a land you do deserve to even look upon, we do not spit at women like you are accustomed to in the North. _You_ should be more afraid of _me_, a woman of one and twenty, trained in battle, than I am afraid of _you_. You, a spiteful, weak little fish, with a sword he can barely hold and a mouth more willful than your equally weak cock."

"Oh yes?" He's struggling for words, she can tell. Mayhaps this boy hasn't been fiercely spoken in a while. What luck I was here. "And _why_ are you so interested in making my life hell, may I ask? What happened to you to make you so bitter and disgusted with men?"

His words hit her harder than she expected, and a bad taste swells in her mouth. She refuses to speak of the cruel men she has met on her ocean journeys, the ones who scorned her for loving other women. She will divulge no such information to Theon Greyjoy. "You may not ask, boy. i do not reply to fools who are only pleased in what lie between women's legs." Synde makes a point of staring at him from heel to head. "You're nothing more to me than the squid you're named after."

"I've heard things about you Codd girls, you know. Is it true that you lay with your fathers and steal each other blind?"

Synde has heard so many jabs and japes about her House, his insults barely bother her. "You're a larger fool than you appear to be if you think you'll be getting any such love from your father. Have you not heard the tales of Balon Greyjoy? For he will give no such comfort to his little wolf boy."

"_Though All Men Do Despise Us_. It's an apt title," grumbles Theon.

She sighs. "What you squids can't seem to realize-" _save Asha, of course, my sweet rough Asha_- "is that we codfish will spare not a single thought to the petty tribulations of your lives. Our words do not mean that we wish for you to hate us, however. What we Codds have that you don't is the true ironborn spirit. We know you despise us, yet we preserve."

"Are you saying I don't?" he shouts through his teeth, and Synde can sense his rage. "Were you ever stolen from your family for something you did not cause? Have you been raised with two wolves who each and everyday saw not a child but a traitor? You speak of perseverance, but what have you been through?"

They could fight from hours, but suddenly the boat docks with a jolt. The captain retches over the edge of the ship, and the Oldtown crew scrambles for shore. Synde glances up at Pyke, where the ironborn carry out their usual tasks, and wants to smile. _I am home, _she thinks_, home, where no one will sneer at me, where no one wishes to hurt me._

Her eyes lift to Theon, who is staring at the Iron Islands with giddy pride as well as a queer expression of wariness, or vulnerability, or fear. _Asha would never look so craven_, Synde thinks, yet her heart breaks just a little for the boy. This weak squid who thinks with his cock and can barely use his mind makes her feel sorry for him, which infuriates her.

"Permit me to allow you some advice," she says quietly. "Do not accept anyone into your life, boy. When you act the way i do, you must spurn all lovers, friends, family. Trust me, for I was there once."

But he isn't listening, the foolish squid will not tear his eyes away from the docks. His momentary fury at her has left him, and Theon Greyjoy is again the brash kraken. "Save your breath," he declares. "I am the only living heir of Balon Greyjoy. The true ironborn will rise to me."

Synde Cobb watches him saunter off the ship.

Fortunately, Theon does not look back to her. Elsewise he would catch her crying for him, and his naïveté, and the innocence that will surely be forced out of him someday.


End file.
